News for Speakers’ Corner, Sunday 23rd September

“I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
Mary Oliver, poet.

1. Lovely in the sun; a refrigerator in the shade. A good day overall with a steady crowd and numerous speakers.

It was nice to see Angela arrive late in the day. Angela is a past speaker, and today she brought her wheelchair with her. (Presumably her broom is out of order.)

Today’s speakers were Helmut, Tommy, Steve, Ray, Mirko, Mark the Grinner and Mr B. We hope Maria joins us soon. The last time this scribe spoke to Maria she had bronchitis and sounded like Death itself.

Mr B began with two stories about a king and his subjects. Then he changed the topic, showing us a drawing he figured was scary. What do you think? Do you think it’s scary?

Each rectangle represents a week of your life, assuming you live to the age of ninety.

2. Ray sent this to your young and spritely scribe. It made me smile.

3. Mr B gave us a new fourth answer to the question ‘What is the Meaning of Life’ and it turned out to be a metaphor using the cheesecake he brought with him and shared.

Regarding the cheesecake, Mr B, next time make it firmer and less crummy.

Later on he gave versions Number 1 and Number 2 for the Meaning of Life, but this time he and his grasshopper worked it out together.

Version Number 3 had the day off.

Here’s yet another version:

4. The cheesecake was handy because coincidentally, it was also Mark the Grinner’s birthday. For some reason Mr B kept calling him Mr Heinz. Why? We don’t know.

Mr Heinz’s first topic was about how unimpressed he is with the warnings television stations give viewers before the program begins. He had a few tart things to say about that, and about the people who require them.

P.S. This scribe requires them.

5. While trying to make a point, Tommy on the Ladder of Knowledge mentioned that 2 + 2 will always equal 4. Naturally, Mr B put up his hand to kindly explain why Tommy was wrong. This scribe would like to say that Tommy was suitably impressed with Mr B’s explanation, but that would be an outright lie.

6. Last week Mr B and a deeply religious man talked about Islam. This week the man turned up again and somehow the discussion resumed, with the origin of the universe being the focal point. They got nowhere, of course. But here again are two memes representiing both sides of the divide.

7. Someone called Mr B a guru. Mind you, it was Tommy. Tommy is not always as reverential as he bloody-well should be. The fact is, Mr B is indeed a guru. He completed this course late last year.

8. A man in the audience informed Mr B that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Mr B said the man should come to Speakers’ Corner more often; he’ll hear hundreds of them. Besides, if there were no such thing as a stupid question, what sort of questions would stupid people ask?

10. Tommy excelled as a speaker again today because he said provocative things and said them well. One complaint he made was about the people who claim they can’t shape their future because of what happened to them in the past. He received plenty of flak for that. But does he have a point?

11. In our Unusual Creature Series, our Facebook page has never before featured the Central and South American Purple harlequin toad, and it never will again.